Relatively Low Decline on the Hungarian Car Market

In the first half of this year, 25.3% fewer new cars were sold in Hungary than in the same period last year. This figure is the most favorable in the Central and Eastern European region, with the decline in the surrounding countries typically being above 30%.

In addition to Hungary, it was only the Czech Republic whose car market weathered the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus epidemic in the CEE region with a decline of less than 30%. While in most countries in the region (Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Slovakia, Poland and Austria) the decline in the number of new cars sold was between 31 and 36%, in Croatia this figure reached 54.4%.

The Hungarian car market data are also outstandingly good in comparison with those of the EU. According to data provided by ACEA, the professional representative of European car manufacturers, the decline in the Community was smaller than the Hungarian value in only two states, Finland (-21.4%) and Sweden (-25.1%). Of the four largest EU car markets, Spain suffered the biggest drop, at 50.9%, Italy at 46.1%, France at 38.6% and Germany at 34.5%.

"The different development of the markets was influenced by a number of factors, from the general situation of the economy to the government's specific restrictive measures to the reactions of the population and companies," Bertalan Halász, CEO of JóAutók.hu ('Good Cars'), explains to the business news site napi.hu.